The Hell Scream
by DougWalkerJumpScareOnMyGenital
Summary: Three Alliance scouts sit alone in the night air of the Blasted Lands, keeping a rather boring watch for any remaining Iron Horde forces left straggling in the red wastes. Lead by an old warrior named Bard, the mundane vigil provokes his younger companions to inquire about the time Bard came face to face with an orc all of Azeroth knows by name: Grommash Hellscream


Author's Note;

I don't even know why I wrote this or what provoked it. Usually when I write, I can't help but make it some 10,000+ word long monster, and yet, here I have this, something rather short. As I said, I dunno what exactly spurred this, but I wrote it down anyways. I decided to break away from my traditional method of puking out WoW fanfics and dress it up with some ~naughty~ words here and there, so if swearing isn't your thing, perhaps a Richard Knaak novel will suit your tastes better.

It's a simple, fast little story I wrote in a half an hour as a "flash of the moment" sort of thing. I guess I'm pretty happy with it. Feel free to enjoy/hate it, yourselves.

Wind swept past them in their small scout camp. It stirred the shallow embers of the meek fire, the fire they weren't supposed to have, as the cold air sailed through the heat of the ashes. Not in the entire world, as far as any of them knew, was there ever a land that could be so bitter chill come night, so suffocatingly swelter come morning. Worse still, at either side of the day, when you either struggled under the sun or huddled under the moon, was the unending and unyielding _dryness_. He surpressed a cough as he absently stirred at the dim glow of their camp fire. This place was horrible. The other day, he had actually found something he hadn't seen since coming to this land of strife and sick red dust. On their scout, he found a tree branch half-buried under some of the sandy ground. Amused, he plucked the old bark limb up and watched as it literally fell in half, disintegrating into dry flakes of sooty wood. It was like an old piece of firewood, only it hadn't been burnt by any flames. It had just been subjected to the intensity of this _awful_ place.

He coughed again, this time he couldn't help himself and he loudly hacked, clearing his throat of irritating dust that was impossible not to breath in. From across the fire, a deep voice chuckled.

"They don't call it the Blasted Lands for nothing, huh?" the voice said, before submitting and adding his own raspy cough.

"I hate this place." he replied back.

"We haven't even seen any Horde for a week." another voice spoke.

" _Iron_ Horde." the first voice corrected.

"Iron, Steel; Stink, Stunk. Who cares."

The first voice shrugged. "I suppose the Horde would, if you confused the two."

"Do you see any Horde around here?" the second voice perked up, alive with sarcastic excitement. "If you do, point them out for me. In fact, if you see anything, point it out for me. Because all I've seen for over a week now is dirt, dust and horseshit." he settled down and leaned back as he looked into the dying fire. "It's enough to start driving a man mad."

"What _is_ the 'Iron' Horde, anyways, exactly?" the one stirring the ashes asked, looking towards the first voice. "Do you know, Bard?"

"It's a bunch of orcs, only they're made out of iron." the second voice spat.

Bard tore his bottom back and forth on his uncomfortable stone seat as he brushed some loose pebbles and grainy rocks from under himself. "It's what we're scouting for."

He frowned. "I gathered that. I know they came through the Dark Portal from some other world. But I don't get it."

Bard shrugged. He didn't have much of an answer.

The mysterious, so-called "Iron Horde" had aggressively invaded Azeroth some weeks ago, or at least they had attempted to do so. Their advance attack was thwarted and some elite division of expendables ran after them. After that, unlucky guys like themselves were deployed in the area. Legions of cavalry troops were sweeping through the diseased canyons and across the wind-battered hills, scouring out the last pockets of 'Iron Horde' they found. Sent before their advance were groups of scouts, who reported any signs of enemy movement that could be followed back to a hiding host. They were all pretty anal about getting every last Iron Horde orc, too. Lots of rumor that survivors were fleeing north, to the Blackrock Spire, or even making attempts to recross, or retake, Azeroth's side of the portal. Bard couldn't help but smirk.

He was older, now. Quite a bit older. But unlike his younger companions, he'd been in this land before. It was years ago, but he was one of the vanguard. Standing beside his brothers at arms as they marched to meet Horde battalions, each of them in fine armor of peerless steel. Steel that would be hammered into crumpled dents and stained with dirt and blood before the day was through. He still remembered the two minute briefing they got right before they set out to march. Their unit captain was some old goat of a man who walked on a wooden peg leg and dared anyone of his men to show him how he could use it. The guy walked back and forth in front of them, shouting out his speech like he'd recited it a dozen times already.

" _Think of the biggest man you've ever seen._ " their unit captain had said.

" _Now think of him beating your ass bloody._ "

A few men scoffed at that. Tough guys who couldn't picture anyone giving them the business. Bard was one of them, back then.

" _Now think of him three times bigger, twice as strong and so ugly, it makes you wish he'd pop your head off and end it_."

" _That_." the old unit captain said, " _Is an orc_."

" _In thirty minutes you sorry boys are going to be marching straight toward about five thousand of them. In forty minutes, they'll be calling us to send more men. Because every single one of those nasty green cunts wants you dead, and I've learned through my time that when you're that big and you're that strong and you're that mean and you're that ugly, you get what you want_."

They weren't the most rousing of words, but the way the captain was spitting them out, they seemed to empower you in a funny kind of way. Like he was taunting you, challenging you to walk back, bleeding from your mouth, and spit on his face. Bard had liked him.

" _You're going to fight today, boys._ "the captain promised _._ " _Maybe some of you have it in your heads you're going to be fighting for 'honor' or your 'kingdom' or your 'family' or 'duty' or some nonsense like that._ "

Bard remembered how the captain spun on his peg leg, swiveling around to pace back the other way. " _That's all shit. Don't fight for any of that. Fight because if you don't kill them, they're going to hit you in the ribs with an axe and make you fall down and make you shit yourself and die_."

With that, the unit captain raised his fists and concluded, " _Who wants to live forever?!_ "

Even by that time, Bard was no stranger to killing an orc. It was true that calling them "monsters" did nothing to sum up the sheer enormity of them. It wasn't just their size, it was everything. Everything about an orc creature could be summed up, in full detail, with the simple word, " _enormous_ ".

The unit captain was mostly right. By the time their rank leaders gave horn to fall back, almost every single one of their six thousand strong host was either dead or dying somewhere on the ground. Less than one thousand of them ended up in report the next few days later. When he and another large group of the men were standing in a bunch, waiting to receive was meager medical attention they could get, the wily unit captain hobbled by them, caught them his eyes and laughed.

Bard had fought orc all across the forests of his home, up and down each and every sloped hill. From his front door to the coast town of Southshore, he only stopped there when he ran into a detachment of actual soldiers who eagerly offered him armor, a horse and more orcs to fight. Did that make him a soldier? A mercenary? He didn't know, and he didn't care, but whatever the case, it seemed back in that day all you had to do to get in nice with the rank and file was be good at not getting killed by the invaders. He remembered the day he received a notice of his promotion to the rank of Sergeant. When he told one of the field commanders he had never even been a Private, or in the army proper at all, the field commander just looked him in the eyes and told him, " _I don't have time for stuff that doesn't matter. Get ready to move out, Sergeant._ "

Fighting orcs was like getting with a pretty girl. Even if you'd done it ten times before, each experience was unique and barely any better than the last. He had always been a rather big man and as a child he had gotten into a lot of fights, a lot of _winning_ fights. But standing up against an orc? It made a big man feel small, and a small man feel... he couldn't even imagine. But that was a long time ago. Back when these 'Blasted Lands' were still called by a different name. Back when the dirt wasn't so desolate and polluted, when there had at least still been trees and grass and some inklings of marshy waterbeds here and there, strong hints that at one time, this entire land supported a myriad of life and ecosystems. They had, of course, eventually won that war, but no one could win the battle for the land. Victory for them, meandering death for the ground beneath their feet. He had always heard the 'corruption', as some called it, had threatened to spread even further, but it had either been contained or grew to its own stop. Bard was a man who feared no pain and no end, but the thought of the entire world being covered in this terrible red nothingness still made him shudder, somewhere deep in his spine.

His history is what brought him back here, to help end yet another orcish invasion. This time it was orcs coming from some other world or timezone or place beyond the stars or _something_ he didn't understand. He knew history had a strange way of repeating itself, but this was all rather ridiculous. The orcs were brown this time around, too. If they were still green, like their now Azerothian counterparts, it would have been quite easy to pick them out from a distance against the redscape of the land. But with their darker color, and the black iron they clad themselves in, it made spotting them much harder... especially during the night.

He had fought the orcs once, and lived to tell. Come this new invasion, he was requested personally by King Varian himself to lead scouting parties through the land. He didn't know why he accepted, really. It was so long ago he wouldn't have recalled much of the land, even if it wasn't more or less unrecognizable in its current state. Besides, he had been a common foot soldier in those days. All he saw was the ground in front of him and anything standing there that he either had to march behind or kill. But still, he accepted. Maybe he felt compelled by some sort of duty, or maybe he just wanted to try his luck and see if he still had it. Once by the fury, always by the fury, he always liked to tell himself.

His two underlings were just boys. Almost as young as he was when he first set out to smash orcs and die. Maybe they were a little older. They were both pretty bright eyed. Scared, but excited. Nervous, but ready to die if they had to. He smirked. He couldn't believe he used to be just like them, once.

"Alright, alright." Bard said, pushing his heel into the hard, brittle dirt to bulldoze it over the dwindling campfire. "Lights out. Let's get some rest while it's dark enough that no one needs to post a watch."

Neither of the boys protested, but as Bard was working at putting out the fire, one of them suddenly asked, "Is it true you fought Hellscream?"

Bard stopped, his leg freezing. He swallowed his throat and spat. "I fought a lot of people."

"Yeah, but Hellscream, right?"

"I never fought him."

"Everyone talks about it, though."

"Who's everyone?"

The boy shrugged. "People back at main camp. They told me when they heard I was running out with you."

"Don't believe everything you hear about old soldiers."

"Why did they say it if it isn't true?"

Bard sighed out through a single nostril, but couldn't help sitting back, sparing the low burning fire that made feeble attempts to poke itself back out into the air with each passing gust of wind.

Nathan was the younger and smaller of the two. He was always excited about the old wars and how he was living through one now himself. Bard didn't have the heart to smack the boy and tell him that chasing down stragglers wasn't a war.

Dannest was older and proved his manhood through being a smartass. Bard would smack him, if he didn't think the the crying would alert any nearby orc. He was sitting, quietly, carefully observing Bard's reaction, waiting to see what the once-time warrior would say.

"I didn't fight him." Bard repeated. Neither of his companions said anything, so he shrugged and sat further back on his rock. "I saw him. I stood right in front of him. But we never ended up fighting."

"How come?" Nathan asked.

Bard grunted a laugh. "Because I'd be dead if we did."

"Psh.", this time it was Dannest. "He can't be that strong."

Bard was amused at Dannest's disbelief, but he still looked at the boy through raised brows. "Picture an orc." he bid.

Dannest scrunched his brows together. "Yeah, okay."

Bard leaned back, folding his arms together. "Now, picture that orc slightly thinner, slightly skinnier than the rest."

Dannest said nothing, but shook his head slightly as he mentally wrapped around the image.

"Now picture him looking scarier than any god damned orc you ever seen before."

"I don't get it."

"That." Bard continued, "Is Grom Hellscream."

Dannest just spat.

"So what happened? How did you not fight him?" Nathan implored.

Bard grinned and let his eyes sear in the burning shine of the sputtering fire. Fine, he could relive a glory day. Just this once.

He pointed, and both boys followed his finger. "Down that way, somewhere further south." he began. "That's where the portal is."

He turned his arm so his finger was pointing towards the west. "Over there, a bit north of the portal or so, was where I was camped up when I was fighting here."

He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his legs. "So, anyways." he continued, "We only got to fight once. The orcs were all holed up around the portal, wouldn't let any of us get near it. Not like we wanted to, but we had to break their line. So they sent us crashing at them. I was part of a vanguard, we were supposed to weaken them up, keep them busy so they couldn't focus on getting new supplies through the portal. It sort of worked, I guess." he said with another shrug.

"So." he kept going, "They got us marching down, side by side, until we see a lake of these orc, swarming around the portal. Everyone starts quivering and praying their last and all that, rank leaders keep shouting commands none of us are listening to." Bard spoke like it was some sort of fond memory of a lazy summer afternoon spent with family. His comfort with his grim past made the two boys seem a little sterner in the face of what they were up against.

"So we get right up to them. So close you could have kissed one of the ugly fuckers." the boys laughed as Bard kept on. "Then, just like that, we just get an order to charge. So we charged." Bard let his hands spring up from his perched elbows.

"Grom was there?" Nathan interrupted.

Bard laughed. "Boy, the whole damned Warsong was there." he shook his head. "Craziest thing I've ever seen. They were singing while we came up to em'. More like bellowing, I dunno. I'll never forget it as long as I live."

Getting himself back on track with the story, he went on. "So, we get the order to charge, we charge and we start fighting. It wasn't too bad at first. We were going in on them downhill, and we had the weight on our side. But once we pushed the first of them down hill and into the bowl, they turned on us pretty hard, then we had to try backing up back the hill we pushed them down. Then somewhere or another it would turn around again, and we'd push them back down. After a few hours, you'd have everyone tripping over the bodies or getting kicked by downed horses or slipping on the blood."

Even Dannest let out a slight wince at the retelling.

"Some of our ranks fell in on each other once the line leaders got killed, and we just balled up and pushed into them. I think they mostly let us through, everyone was tired of fighting on that _fucking hill_." Bard spat on the ground. "Anyways, we're finally on flat ground and we're fighting. Somewhere in there is when I see him."

Bard sat back, grumbling in his throat, as if we were somewhat hesitant to go on, but he knew he'd went too far into the story to stop now. "He just stood there, less like he was fighting and more like he was just looking at who to chop down next. He saw me. Both of us just stood there, then. I'd never seen him before, but I'd heard talk. Talk of the Warsong leader who screamed so loud it could knock a horse down. His black chin, his massive axe." Bard chuckled with another grin as he leaned forward, his weather and war-worn face taking on deep shadows, his red beard growing rustier by the minute. "But everyone always talked a big talk about it, too. Said when he screamed, he'd tense up for a few moments and just stand there like a fool, wide open. If you were quick and gutsy enough, there was no reason you couldn't poke a knife through his fat, stupid throat."

Bard ground his feet into the dirt. "That's what I thought, too. It'd be so easy. Be the man who downed the Hellscream. Get to stand there and drink in your own glory for a moment, see the look on all the ugly orc faces as they realized who you just cut down. I thought it'd be glorious, so I raised my axe," he pat a heavy hand on a metal hand axe strapped to his side that looked older than both boys combined and like it had been inside the skulls of more orc than either one had ever even seen.

"I saw him tense up. I seen his terrible red eyes roll back, I seen his grubby, fleshy mouth open."

Bard groaned another sigh and shook his head, his hand falling from his axe. "That's when he screamed."

He stopped for a second, reliving the memory.

"Yeah?" Nathan cut in, interrupting his recollection, pleading him to go on.

Bard rubbed the butt of his bearded chin hard between two knuckles of his fist. "How do I even..." he said, shaking his head again. He realized he had never taken a moment to put the experience into words, and he was finding it harder than he ever thought it would be. He sat back in contemplation, his pause only making both boys all the more eager to hear what he'd say next.

"I couldn't believe it, first of all." Bard mumbled out. His head fell back, and his eyes stared up at the stars in the sky. "It was like... like, a force. An invisible zap of lightening just smashing through you, rattling your entire body, shaking every bone you have. Then, it went out through the bottom of your feet and left them feeling like you were stepping on a hundred hot needles that wouldn't quit poking into you."

He rubbed a hand across his mouth, grimacing, still looking up at the sky. "I felt like someone hit me in the gut, like I was going to throw up and shit myself. I wanted to curdle down and fall over, but I knew I couldn't. So I just stayed there, standing up best I could. I swear the battle stopped all around me, like there was nothing left but me and the pain, like the shout just blew everything else away. It made your ears feel like they were wet, somehow. Your eyes felt like they had some lingering weight on them, you might worry you were going to go blind, if you had time to worry about that." he laughed a weak, sudden laugh.

"It was then, right there and then, that you realized it didn't matter how many orcs you killed or how invincible you thought you were. Because you finally realized, too late, that you weren't just standing before _an_ orc. You were standing before Grom fokin' Hellscream, and you were going to die."

"What happened?" Nathan asked.

Bard let his head roll back forward and leaned toward the fire again. "Some other dink-dick jumped out in front of me, guessing he thought he was going to nab Grom for himself while I stood there." Bard gave a half shrug. "Hellscream split him right in two." he said, casting a finger up and down himself quick to demonstrate the body length lateral cut. "Skull to shitter."

Bard cracked his knuckles together. "We both thought it was sort of funny."

They were all silent again for a moment, no sound except the whistling wind around them and the last dying cracks of the fire as it began to choke on its own smoke.

"Needless to say, you don't wonder why they call him 'Hellscream' after that." Bard finished.

"He's dead now, though." Dannest said. "Hellscream is."

"Hmm." Bard grumbled, silencing the boy. "You don't understand, do you?" he asked. Dannest said nothing.

"Neither do I, exactly." Bard admitted. "But you see, the portal? It doesn't lead to some broken "Outlands" anymore. It leads back to some time before that, to the world before it was ruined."

"What?" Dannest questioned. "Like, in time?"

Bard gave something between a nod and a shrug. "If the Kirin Tor are to be believed."

"So, what?" the boy asked.

"So, there might be a Grom somewhere, beyond that portal. Trying to get out and back to our world." All three of the men stared off into the distance, looking towards the portal they couldn't see.

"And if we don't get some rest and do our jobs right, we might be seeing him right here someday. Then you can hear that scream for yourself."

Dannest shook his head before kicking the fire to death himself and laying down on the earth.

" _Fuck that_."


End file.
